


A Matter of Time

by dieuclaw



Series: A Machine for Prayer [2]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: M/M, Mirror Universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:21:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29638032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dieuclaw/pseuds/dieuclaw
Summary: 2370, “Mirror” “Universe” Federation ID ALTERNATE T-797-LAMBDA-06. For an exile of the Q Continuum, an unimaginative, stupid, painful, and (listen to this)totally avoidabledeath is only the first item on a laundry list of problems.
Relationships: Jean-Luc Picard/Q, Locutus of Borg/Q
Series: A Machine for Prayer [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2178324
Kudos: 8





	A Matter of Time

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning for self-indulgent Continuum lore, please be assured I’m making everything up as I go and cherrypicking the rest from whatever the hell was happening in VOY.
> 
> This is a direct sequel to _A Machine for Prayer._ TL;DR Q finds himself stuck in the Mirror Universe as an officer on Picard’s ISS _Enterprise_. Nothing good comes of it.
> 
> Tags and warnings subject to change.

_That which became the Continuum was there, thirteen point seven seven billion years ago. Not me, I wasn’t supraliminal yet, but I don’t see anyone else who has the patience to explain everything to you in plain UTL. You’ll just have to take my word for it._

_The universe ignited one day and it’s been burning ever since._

_God…?_

_“God” is just the word you mortals use to describe normal life, natural disasters, the shadow in the cave, whatever—and you know what they say about the dangers of anthropomorphization. That’s how you get all those ridiculous stories about people like me stealing the sun, and having sex with farm animals, and—_

_“But, Q, how can this be? You’re talking to me right now!” Is that what you were going to say? Well, don’t. I should never have assumed a three-dimensional form in the first place._

_Do you get it now?_

_We didn’t start the fire._

  
  


#

  
  


Do you have time for a quick metaphor?

  
  


#

  
  


236?, Stardate Unknown

Imperial Nexus Planet “Earth”

San Francisco 

  
  


Q leans over the railing of the bridge, an unreadable expression on her face as she watches the bay below. It’s a blustery afternoon. Her hair is snapping in the wind like a flag, and she frowns as some of it sticks to her mouth, and she zips up the collar of her jacket, just to have something to do with her hands.

“You’re as bad as Q,” Q says, and shivers for dramatic effect.

Q arches both eyebrows— _qui, moi?_ —and joins her at the rail, close enough that they’re sharing body heat. Romulans run hotter than humans, and he likes Q, insofar as any of the Continuum like each other.

“Oh, I wouldn’t go so far… Q has so many bones to pick, he’s lent new meaning to the term Ivory Tower philosophy.” Q nudges Q with his elbow. “I’ve just got one.”

A human rib appears in Q’s fingers, and then he lets it go. They watch it fall into the whitecapped water. It’s so far down that the splash is inaudible.

“From this height, it’s like hitting concrete,” Q smacks his palm on the railing for effect. “Mortals jump off all the time. I wonder if Q’s thought of it?”

“Please don’t say that.” Q is closer to suffering from boredom than any emotional distress. 

“It can’t be worse than eternity in a comet.”

“That’s for his own good!”

“I think, honestly, we should try everything once. Death’s a change. None of us really want to murder each other.” He pauses, absorbing a shiny new idea. “Have you heard of Ättestupa?”

“It’s irregular, is what it is. Your obsession with _that man_ is the same.” _That man:_ an infinitesimally microscopic crumb of cosmic dust. But Q has been a diatom and a long-eared desert mouse before, and a karst wyrm, and the fifth-dimensional orthoplexic echo that plays under unreality like a bass line. Proportional scale is always relative.

He tends to forget that last bit, when he talks to the mortals and their ragtag little space navy.

“Yes, of course I love Picard.” Q has a handful of little bones now, carpals and metacarpals. He starts skipping them over the edge. The bones burst in the air this time like snapdragons, drawing second glances from tourists and joggers and a cyclist who’d probably been at the Tour de France. Still, no one’s seemed to notice the towering alien beside him, even though the Empire and the Alliance are deadlocked in a Cold War that’s heating up faster than a caldera on Shinnab Alpha V.

He suspects _that_ particular festering galactic canker sore is why Q has chosen to emulate a member of the Tal Shiar, but the joke is lost in execution. Her ears are rounded off, and Q is _pretty sure_ there aren’t any natural redheads on Romulus, although he hasn’t been back since the drought.

“Why?” 

“Because it’s when I met him that I became a different person,” Q says, with zero self awareness. 

Q blinks, and when Q makes no motion to retract this frankly revolting statement, she pushes her hands back through her mane in pure exasperation. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Oh, be quiet. You’re the one who let yourself be eaten by a—“

“That was _one time!_ ”

“Like I said. Try everything once.” Q claps his companion on the back heartily. They may as well be two cadets talking about what, exactly, an Orion girl can do with her mouth, if you know how to ask. “Listen. If the Continuum was less intractable, maybe Q wouldn’t be _dying_ to jump off a bridge.”

Q groans, eyes cast heavenward at the suspension cables stretching red above them. The driving lanes of the bridge had been repaved with solar panels in this century, but the monument stands, tying the Armada Nexus Command and the Academy to the headlands and the wine country in the north. 

“You’re equally intractable,” she says, at length.

“And annoying, provocative, next of kin to chaos—“

“Who said that? _Next of kin to chaos._ That’s far too palatial for you.”

“Tell that to Jean-Luc.” Q props his chin on his hand. It’s true that he is behaving like a basket case: he’s literally dazzling. Their surroundings are starting to double and triple into afterimages as if the entire beautiful world has been exposed to light leaks from other suns, although it’s overcast, today. The fog has left every surface gleaming wet.

Q unfolds a pair of mirrored sunglasses pointedly. “What are you going to do, Q?”

“Nothing crazy.”


End file.
